Teaching Palestine on an Israeli University Campus

Unsettling Denial

By (author) Daphna Golan-Agnon

Publication date:

16 November 2020

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781785275012

The word “occupation” is not heard in classrooms on the Hebrew University campus, at the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem. The “war outside” is not spoken of. Israeli and Palestinian students unsettle this denial for the first time in a practice-led course on human rights in the reality around them.

Readers join the students for a walking tour of the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Mt. Scopus campus. They explore the complex relations between education, civil engagement, and the occupation, which present themselves in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Issawiyye, Sheikh Jarrah, and Lifta. These relations then make their way into the classroom where Palestinian and Israeli students engage with one another for the first time.

List of Photographs by Jack Persekian; Acknowledgments; Map of Jerusalem; Introduction; 1 The Mount Scopus Campus; 2 Issawiyye: Palestinian Citizens of Israel (Students) Encounter Palestinian Youth Living under the Occupation; 4 Lifta: Site for Reconciliation; 5 Students Working for Change: Campus- Community Partnerships; 6 This Is Not “Co-Hummus”; Notes; Index.

An outstanding and valiant teacher “Daphna Golan does the extraordinary thing in this book of revealing the officially sanctioned states of denial that shield the students at her University from looking around them.
This excellent book will open your mind to the multitudinous levels of denial prevalent in Israeli society and how one courageous professor attempted to challenge them and open the minds of her students to the many lies that shield them from the reality surrounding them.” — Raja Shehadeh is a writer and lawyer his latest book is Going Home A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation.